01 – Gods Perfect world

This is a series on the gospel of Jesus Christ and the faith that I have that Jesus Christ is my Saviour, please check out the main “gospel” section here. These pages are meant as a basic introduction to the Christian faith.

In order to understand the love of God, we have to understand the original blueprint for mankind. If you have checked out our “creation” section you will understand the way the order and the reason that God created things, the world that you are reading from with wars, sickness, famine and death was not in God’s original plan. Let’s look at the scriptures that talk about Gods plan for humankind.

Genesis 2:4 (ESV) These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. 5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

God’s original blueprint

So Here is the edited highlights, God makes the heavens in the earth in 6 days, (see creation section) rests on the seventh day (This is Genesis 1:1-2:3) God created all things, the dirt, the rain, the gardens, the vegetation, the plants. He created a perfect place for humankind to be in, perfect climate, man has dominion over the beasts of the field and the animals of the air.

We have it written in the Holy Scriptures that it was “very good”, there was no sin, no death, no animals killing each other, the lion quite literally laid down next to the lamb. Man ate of the bountiful provision that God made and there was more than enough food to go around.

Man – image of God and ruler of his own backyard

In Genesis one we read how man was formed from the dust of the ground. I live in California so I get in a real literal sense seeing a ground that is a blank canvas and what it looks like with an absence of water. Could I create a man from my dusty back yard? No.

The interesting thing about this is that scientists propose a similar way that man evolved by coming out of the ground. They do not like to give credit to God who created it so they have supposed that a huge “Big Bang” happened in order to jolt life into existence.

We know already that man was created in Gods own image, that the creation is listed as “very good” that the planets are exactly where they are meant to be, that the air is just right to sustain life

No sin – Man and God walked hand in hand

So man and God walked hand in hand, they had a good relationship, God had provided everything that man had required thus far, there was no sin, so no hatred, no gluttony, man strived to please God, there was a genuine relationship, man was placed in this awesome climate that really required nothing from him to grow, God provided everything.

Despite this, God still gave him a job, who here thinks “yippee I get to go to my job” but even from the beginning God wished man to have a sense of fulfilment, a healthy mind and keep himself occupied. Man still emphasizes a great importance in work; however, some go too far and make work their God.

God set the basic standards for life; he gave a man and a woman for the preservation and growth of human life. At this point God had made us in bodies that did not decay, everything was still “very good”. God made the woman out of man and man him for man. They became one flesh, they were naked and because there was no sin, there was no shame.

One rule – Don’t eat that fruit

I use this terminology because, as a father, I am very keen to teach the child that God has entrusted me with some biblical basics. When she was a lot younger we had this bible called “The Beginners Bible” it was mainly pictures with a few words on each page. (Enough to tell a story and keep a young child interested) The interesting thing that caught my daughters attention was the way we told the story, we used the command “Don’t eat that fruit” when we were talking about God’s perfect garden. Even today she remembers this.

Man had one rule, in the scriptures it reads as follows “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Not exactly hard huh? As mankind, in order not to blow it and to stay in paradise we have one rule to follow. Talk about a God that loves us and doesn’t make it hard huh?

Why the temptation?

A question I have been asked a lot by atheists is “Why did God put that tree in the garden in the first place?” I find this question encouraging, the reason I find it encouraging is that it shows me that despite their skepticism about God, they have chosen to at least pick up a bible. I am confident that God’s word does not return void and we all have that space in our hearts for God, God created us that way and I am happy to answer that question, it may one day help them reconcile that God is true in their hearts.

God allowed Adam and Eve the same opportunity that he allows all humans. He allows us the opportunity to follow him or to not follow him. God never intended to command us to blindly follow him. This is why we have reasoning skills and free will. Many will chose to not follow him; many of us will chose to submit to the temptations that come our way.

Think of it this way, Adam had one temptation, we have many! We can view that whichever way we wish, many lament that our many temptations are an example of how humanity had slid, that is a fair comment, but I personally think that God was just showing mercy in not setting man up to fail.

The first union

Was between a man and a woman in Gods original blueprint. God knew that it was “not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” and God made the female in which we all were to come through. Eve was the mother of all living. God gave the instruction not to sin to Adam as the head of the home and he was responsible to ensure that his household kept Gods plan.

God was sent a helper, not a subordinate. He was sent a woman who would “complete him” and “become one flesh” in the relationship setting between the man and the woman, we both bring different skills to the table. We are two completely different people so sometimes they will overlap, however the original blueprint, they fitted together perfectly.

They were not ashamed

With no sin, there was no depravity, nature was in balance. I am sure Adam approached Eves beauty as a woman but although they were naked they were not nude. What I mean by this is that this picture shows us that there was nothing hidden, from each other, from God and they were as God had intended them to be.

With no sin in the world at this point there was no shame, everyone who was likely to see them was likely to see them. There was no spending 3 hours in the bathroom fixing yourself up, changing your appearance, everything was still pure.

Human nature states that we have to guard or hide our imperfections, this was not the case in God’s perfect world, there was no shame in the natural form.

God bless and I pray this was a blessing and please feel free to like, share or comment on here or whatever social media platforms you use as the Lord leads you to, as always I love questions about this or any other article so please feel free to fill in the form below, all comments are moderated to avoid profanity.TTETGBTGSDG